These days, nearing the millennium, midwives are again in favor, having suffered for most of this century the contempt and arrogance of modern Western medical practice. Banished and forbidden by law to perform their work anywhere, how did they make this comeback? Not gone quite long enough to be out of memory, I suppose. But now it is not at all unusual for a woman to choose a midwife to see her through a pregnancy and help deliver the baby. My daughter goes to a midwife named Sue, whose partner is named Linda. She likes and respects both of them very much. But then, my Tru also has a masseuse, is taking Yoga classes, water aerobics, and will give birth in a furnished suite at the small, friendly hospital about a half-hour from their house. It will be possible for her husband to stay in the same double bed with her to comfort and coach her during labor. Not Lamaze, but a similar method. I emerged in the dark ages myself. So-called doctors delayed my arrival by having an orderly lay across my mother's legs till the obstetrician got to the hospital, and then proceeded to nearly kill my mother by over-anesthetizing her. It seems that her doctor wouldn't get paid if he (of course he ) wasn't there for the delivery. The process was so messed up by the time he did get there, that he had to use forceps to pull me out of an almost dead body. Things had improved quite a bit by the time, twenty years later, I was giving birth to my own daughter. There was talk of natural childbirth and prenatal classes. I didn't have access to any of this where I lived, but I had heard of it. In some places they were even allowing the father into the delivery room. My doctor (yes, a he ), in 1967, wouldn't hear of it however. Now, almost thirty years later, thinking of my daughter and her midwife feels like redemption of the first order.